introduction to governance, politics & policy, week 3: the process & its problems

8/8/2019 Introduction to Governance, Politics & Policy, Week 3: The Process & its Problems

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Introduction to Governance,Politics & Policy

Week 3: The Process & its Problems 

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Maastricht Graduate School of Governance

Announcements

Requests to the

Examination Committee

will be processed today…

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Maastricht Graduate School of Governance

Announcements

•  When would you like to have your

Econometrics exam?

• Option 1:– Exam on Monday, Jan 10

– Resit on Friday, Jan 28

•  Option 2:

– Exam on Friday, Dec 17– Resit on Friday, Jan 21

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Maastricht Graduate School of Governance

Exam Prep: General information

• The exam will consist of 4 essayquestions, answerable in ~1 page

• You have 120 minutes to answer them

– Read the question

– Outline or draft your answer

– Write your answer

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Maastricht Graduate School of Governance

Exam Prep: Grading

• Factual correctness

– Many questions have more than 1 correct

answer

– There are wrong answers

• Usually, the majority of points is

awarded for reasoning…

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Maastricht Graduate School of Governance

Reminder: Questions? Problems?

• Use the courtesy phone

!!!!"• Dial 84712

• Or 043 388 47 12 from your mobile

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Maastricht Graduate School of Governance

Exam Prep: Sample Question 1

Do you agree with the statement “governance is all about government”?

Support your opinion with arguments.

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Maastricht Graduate School of Governance

Exam Prep: Sample Question 2

Some researchers argue that civil servants have asubstantial influence on the policy process.

Others maintain that this influence is limited tospecific tasks within the process.

Which side do you favor, and why? (Give considerationto all phases of the policy process.)

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Maastricht Graduate School of Governance

Exam Prep: More Questions

Two more samplequestions will be posted by Friday (this week)

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Maastricht Graduate School of Governance

Agenda

• Previous models of the policy process

– The garbage can model

• The influence of problems

• Surviving the “alternatives” phase

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Maastricht Graduate School of Governance

Previous models

• Understanding the process by findingits origin

• Understanding the process through themechanism of rational choice

• Understanding the process asincremental improvements to existing

foundations

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Maastricht Graduate School of Governance

Previous models: Origin 

• Logic: The origin has an influence onthe chances of a policy

• Any idea has multiple parents

– Tracing is no simple task, either

• This is a group process, not ahierarchical process

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Maastricht Graduate School of Governance

Previous models: Rational Choice 

• Decision makers can be understood asrational actors

• The expected outcome does not matchthe actual outcome

• Cognitive limitations

• Behavior does not match the model

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Maastricht Graduate School of Governance

Previous models: Incrementalism 

• (Never?) a fresh start, iterativeimprovements to existing solutions

• Suitable, since it decreases effort,focuses on needed improvements

• Unrepresentative of agenda setting

• Does not explain large changes

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Maastricht Graduate School of Governance

Garbage cans

• Cohen, March & Olsen:

– Organized anarchy: no way to develop

coherent preferences

– Loose collection of ideas

– Action -> discovery of preferences

– Members don’t/can’t understand the

process– Membership is fluid

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Maastricht Graduate School of Governance

Garbage cans

• CMO see four streams:

– Problems

– Solutions

– Participants

– Choice opportunities

• Participants are self-propelled: self-

interests

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Maastricht Graduate School of Governance

Garbage cans

• Kingdon sees three other streams:

– Problem recognition

– Formation of policy proposals

– Politics

• Participants can be generalists or

specialists

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Maastricht Graduate School of Governance

Recognizing problems…

• New problems

– Indicators

– Symbols

• Existing programs

– Feedback

… and loosing attention again

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Maastricht Graduate School of Governance

Recognizing problems: indicators 

• Basic check for the existence of problems

– Whole agencies are dedicated tomonitoring indicators

– Additionally, studies probe deeper or covernon-monitored items

• Indication of a problem requires that itbe “formulation” 

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Maastricht Graduate School of Governance

Recognizing problems: symbols 

• Symbols are powerful

– May still need an “interpreter” 

• Often, they promote a “lingering” problem to the general attention

• Again: formulating the problem pre-forms the solutions

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Maastricht Graduate School of Governance

Recognizing problems: feedback 

• Based on indicators, complaints,experience

• Leads to re-examine the definitions of problem and solution

– Others issues: costs, unintended

consequences

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Maastricht Graduate School of Governance

Disappearing problems

• Why do problems fall off the agenda?

– It’s been solved (perception)

– It’s no longer an issue (perception)

– Solutions are seen as unsustainable(perception)

– It’s unprofitable (perception)

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Maastricht Graduate School of Governance

Processing problems

• Policy communities

•  “Soup” & Entrepreneurs

• Survival of the …? Fittest?

• Towards the choice:– Short-listing

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Maastricht Graduate School of Governance

Policy communities

• Members are specialists

– Shared focus

– Shared interaction (?)

– Shared interests (?)

• Fragmentation in community ->fragmentation in policy (proposals)

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Maastricht Graduate School of Governance

“Soup”: the need for entrepreneurs 

• Fishing for problems and solutions

– Very broad range: “lots of good ideas

around” 

• Entrepreneurs ! investors

– Calling attention to problems

– Promoting solutions

– Expecting a return

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Maastricht Graduate School of Governance

Managing the process

• Entrepreneurs work small policycommunities and larger publics

• This is done– to keep an issue alive

– in anticipation of a “window of 

opportunity” (cf. trial balloons)

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Maastricht Graduate School of Governance

Sink or swim

• A usable solution has to be:

– Available

– Feasible

– Acceptable to the public

– Suitable for the medium to long term

• Which solution will get selected?

– Momentum

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Maastricht Graduate School of Governance

This is theory…

• Use task 7 to see how this couldhappen with a real example!

• The task raises a typical Dutchexample

– You don’t need to be familiar with it

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Questions? 

Phone 84712 !!!!